


Blood Stained

by Charlie_Harrison1806



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: F/M, Ghosts, Post-Crimson Peak (2015), Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 18,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28913514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie_Harrison1806/pseuds/Charlie_Harrison1806
Summary: Why was she here? How long had she now been living here? Worry for her life was not long forgotten in Thomas's mind. Now he was worried about his own safety, despite already being dead.1887 the Sharpe siblings were found dead, their estate left empty. A decade later and a beautiful young woman enters their home, having bought it to live in for the remainder of her life. Her beauty catching Thomas's eye but also catching Lucille's hatred. With a new threat and a new environment, how will Thomas, Lucille and this mystery woman go on with their 'lives' when none of them have a life to live?
Relationships: Thomas Sharpe/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

10 years since Edith left. 10 years since the Sharpe siblings died and began haunting the sinking estate that had been their home their entire lives. It was 1897 now. Just short of a new century and the Sharpe siblings had still not communicated since Lucille murdered Thomas and he was fine with that. Lucille on the other hand felt anger and loathing for the man whom she had once loved. Her grudge surely what was keeping her from passing on from this world.

Their ghosts haunted different parts of the mansion during different times of the day, never allowing the two to meet. Ghostly melodies would float up from the library every night, while the tinkering of tools would tumble down from the workshop during the day. That had been the way for so long that both ghosts stirred at the same time, for the first time, when the doors to the mansion flung open one summer's day.

“This place is haunted. Are you sure you want to stay here, Ma’am?” A gruff voice questioned. Thomas crept out of his workshop and looked down at the four new forms in the foyer, able to see his sister’s ghostly figure lurking in the shadows beyond.

“Yes, thank you. Could please take those upstairs for me?” A kind voice surrounded Thomas, the owner of it a young woman and Thomas felt fear for her life. He watched on as two men carried a large case up the creaky old stairs another carrying two smaller bags behind them. Thomas glanced back to the young woman to see her looking around in awe at the decrepit place, her hand running along the dark wood banister as she walked past. Lucille’s anger and fury were notable at even this distance and Thomas wondered how this woman hadn’t felt the vast drop in temperature.

“Is there anything else, Ma’am?” One of the men asked as all three made their way back down the stairs.

“That will be all. Thank you gentleman,” Her voice seemed like a temptress wooing the men, while her body and the way she held herself screamed out her quality education and lack of need for a man in her life. The three men nodded their heads in respect before exiting the mansion, the last closing the door behind him.

The woman unpinned her hair, letting the dark curls fall over her shoulders and onto her navy blue dress and ran her fingers through the silky looking hair. She let out a sigh of content before continuing her exploration of the unkempt house. Her eyes seemed to sparkle in delight at everything she saw, her hands feeling everything that she studied as though it would vanish and she would never get the chance again.

“Oh dear,” Her voice seemed slightly startled and caught Thomas’s full attention once again, snapping him out of the mild daydreams. She was standing at one of the small vanity mirrors, looking at all of the dead black moths on its wooden surface. Thomas watched her shake her head before turning back towards the staircase and ascending them gracefully. He would admit that the young woman was beautiful, but not aloud so as to not threaten her safety any more than it already was.

“First things first. Bedroom and bathroom,” the woman said to herself once she reached the second floor. Thomas was now so intrigued by this mystery woman that he glided down to the second floor and followed her to his old room, hiding in the shadows, as he watched her look around.

Her eyes were a calm ocean blue; Thomas realised when she looked at the doors, allowing him to see her facial features properly for the first time. She was stunning and Thomas knew from that moment, the rest of her life would be either a conscious fight for life or an unconscious acceptance of death.


	2. Chapter 2

Thomas stood watching the young woman as she began to remove the linen from the canopy bed, putting all of it in a growing pile off to the side of the room. She seemed so elegant when she moved and Thomas couldn’t stop watching. She removed the dank, musky curtains from their place over the windows, adding them to the pile a few metres from where he stood.

“Are you going to love _her_ too?” Thomas spun quickly to face the ghostly, dark figure of his sister. Her cruel, scratchy voice showing no love, only hate.

“Leave her alone, Lucille. She’s not done anything,” Thomas growled, the room seeming to darken with Lucille’s expression. Both snapped away from their staring competition when the mystery woman spoke.

“Honestly. Will it always be like this?” Thomas was confused as to what she was talking about this time and both ghosts just stared. The woman kept going about the room taking any fabric materials that could be washed and adding them to the pile. Thomas glared at Lucille when she laughed at the woman, her form dissipating into the air soon after.

Thomas turned back to the woman when he heard her sigh. She had finished removing all of the carpets and Thomas wondered how she moved the bed and other furniture. All of the furniture had been lifted at some point so that the carpets could be lifted from the floor. The woman then walked out of the room, pushing all of the linen in front of her and throwing them over the banister and down to the floor below.

The woman turned back around, walking back into the room and going straight to her case. She began pulling out some beautiful and intricate dresses of a variety of colours. He watched her as she hung the clothes up, placing them into the empty wardrobe. When all of her clothes were hung up and shoes neatly lined under the base of the wardrobe, she walked back out of the room and down the stairs.

“How long until you kill her too?” Thomas questioned as he walked over to the wardrobe, wanting to look at the dresses.

“How long until you fuck her too?” Lucille’s voice was still scratchy and sounded like static on wax cylinders. Thomas slammed the wardrobe door shut, momentarily having forgotten about the woman.

“What the hell?” Thomas quickly hid back in the shadows, Lucille vanishing once again as the woman stormed into the room. The woman moved over to the wardrobe and opened the door, Thomas watched her inspect every inch of the door, inside and out until she nodded slightly and left the room again.

Thomas sighed before leaving the bedroom, deciding to go back up to his workshop and tinker with some more contraptions before nightfall when Lucille would surely begin her gothic melodies for the night. Deciding to walk the halls for the first time, Thomas saw memories of Edith, Enola, his mother, everyone who had once lived here happily would walk past him and just before they passed, their  
figures would turn into the deep crimson of the clay below and glare at him accusingly. They would point at him and just after they left his view they would grab him or yell and scream.

The last figure he saw was the most painful. A young girl was laughing, her voice slightly muffled but her innocence couldn’t be more pure and serene. As she got closer, running from an invisible form, the child grew and matured. Just before she reached Thomas, who had now stopped in his tracks, his sister from just moments before she died was standing before him. Tears running down her cheeks, blood dripping from the wound on her collarbone and crimson covering her hands, arms and the bottom of her dress.

“You did this to me,” Her voice sounded muffled and very quiet as though she were barely whispering. Her body looking tired and weak as she raised her hand towards him.

“This is your fault,” As the words left her mouth she rushed Thomas, the figure reverting to the black, ghostly figure, screeching at the top of her lungs and going straight through him, sending him to the ground as the other figures surrounded him and began to attack him. He begged silently, begged for it to stop as the figures clawed and bit into his body. He could feel every tear in his flesh, every bite mark piercing his skin before tearing it away from his body. No sound would leave his mouth as the figures continued to attack him but their forms began to fade as the hall became lighter.

Thomas craned his head to look towards the light to see the woman walking along the hall with a candelabra in her hands. She would stop at a door and look into the room before moving on to the next room. As soon as his head was within the light, the figures around him vanished and he too quickly followed their lead. He moved swiftly up into the attic, taking refuge in his workshop a further two floors higher than the woman.

“You ran away from her quite quickly. Scared?” Lucille’s voice rang out seeming colder than before.

“Don’t you have a piano to go and haunt?” Thomas growled at his older sister. He sighed in annoyance at having gone from not speaking to her in over a decade to being unable to get her to leave him alone. Thomas could feel the temperature of the attic drop, slight amounts of frost forming over the workbench that he sat at.

“You did this to me!” Lucille shrieked and for a moment, Thomas flinched because of the reminder of what had happened just moments before.

“All of this is your fault!” Thomas snapped around, launching off of his seat and wrapped his hand tightly around Lucille’s ghostly form.

“This was not my fault. _You_ were the one who poisoned Edith. _You_ killed Enola. Pamela. Margret. _You_ killed our mother. _And_ our son. Do not blame me,” Thomas’s voice was cold, adding to the existing frost of the room and producing a sheen of ice on the floor. Both Thomas and Lucille quickly vanished from the room when the woman rushed into the workshop. Thomas looked at his sister, her neck still in his grasp before sighing. He let her go and left back to his old room, deciding to find out who this woman was.


	3. Chapter 3

“Yes?” Thomas had been watching the woman now for four days and even still, he had no idea who she was.

“Here is your mail from the last few days,” the man at the door answered passing over a handful of letters. The woman nodded her head in thanks before shutting the dark wood door as the man turned to leave.

“What on Earth?” The woman put her letters down on a table near the door as she went to investigate whatever Lucille was up to in the kitchen. Thomas quickly weighed out whether it was worth going down and looking at her name on the envelopes before quickly darting down to the first floor.

“Lady Selina Allerton,” Thomas said to himself. He noticed that in the 10 or so letters there were over 4 countries of origin.

“Australia, England, Ireland, Cyprus, India,” Thomas dropped the letters onto the floor in a hurry to be out of Selina’s sight when he heard her hurried footsteps coming back. He watched her from the shadows as she picked up the letters and carried them to ‘her’ room. She had never slept as far as Thomas knew, she was always doing something.

Thomas crept into the room and looked around the stunning beauty that had been revived in the room. All of the windows had been cleaned to perfection, birds occasionally flying into them not realising the glass was there, the wood floor shining and fixed, sanded and smooth to the touch. Every piece of furniture was dust free and looked brand new despite the age of some pieces. The carpet, curtains and the bed were in perfect condition now and the room in whole just screamed royalty and elegance in Thomas’s mind.

Thomas watched as Selina opened her letters and read them, organizing them and completing any requirements before she pushed her chair away from the writing table. Something in Thomas’s mind started to ring, he hasn’t seen her eat. Selina stood up from the writing desk, cutting Thomas’s thoughts short as he watched her move to the ensuite bathroom which had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life and all rusted pipes changed for better quality pipes.

The cracked and broken tiles had all been replaced and the other necessities for the bathroom replaced with newer ones. Thomas couldn’t remember a time where any part of the house was clean and not broken. It had never happened in his life.

“Do you fancy me?” Thomas quickly vanished into his workshop when he heard Selina’s words. She couldn’t have been talking to him. She couldn’t see him but who was she talking to? Maybe she is delusional and believes she has someone with her. Yes, that’s what it is.

Nevertheless, Thomas stayed away from Selina for a while to cool his mind. He felt Lucille behind him, watching him, as he worked on a new project. A machine that could convert water into oxygen and hydrogen to replenish oxygen levels in confined areas where air cannot freely pass.

“You love her,” Thomas ignored the cynical voice and kept with his design. If he could super heat the metal…

“What was so great about Edith that you chose to love her over me?! What was so appealing about her that you were willing to throw away everything that we had?!” Lucille screeched.

“BE QUIET!” Both Lucille and Thomas faced the door in complete shock. Selina stood there, eyes closed and rubbing her temples. Both ghosts left as quick as they could and heard nothing more from Selina.

Had she seen him? Had she actually heard him? Had she heard Lucille? All these questions ran through Thomas’s mind as he remembered back to when Edith had gotten Lucille to face him before Edith killed her in self-defence. Maybe Selina had already seen them countless times and neither he nor Lucille had noticed.

“I’m sure you enjoy watching me,” Thomas froze when he heard Selina’s voice. He turned and saw her looking straight at him.

“Whatever happened between the two of you happened. Can you please be quieter about it, though, if you both need to be at each other’s throats?” Thomas stumbled backwards a little as Selina moved closer.

“I can hear and see you, yes. I don’t mind what you both do as this was your house before it was mine but please keep the noise down a little,” Thomas finally processed what the woman had said and managed to form a coherent thought.

“You have been talking to my sister and I, not yourself.” Thomas commented still trying to come to terms with everything.

“I may not be human, but I am not crazy,” Selina’s last words never reached Thomas’s mind as her first words hit him like a wall. _I may not be human… not be human_.

“You’re not human?” Thomas didn’t get the chance to think through his words before he spoke. Regretting them in case whoever she was, or rather _whatever_ she was, could hurt ghosts.

“No. You hadn’t already worked that out?” Thomas shook his head.

“You’ve been dead less than 20 years then…” Selina stopped for a moment before holding out her hand for introductions.

“Thomas. Sir Thomas Sharpe,” Thomas answered reaching for her outstretched hand, not thinking he would be able to touch her.

“Well, you already looked at my letters so I don’t think I need to introduce myself.” Thomas nodded in politeness but was staring at where her hand touched his. True physical touch. Her hand did not pass through his.

“How is…” Thomas began, unable to form words at the feeling of a living persons touch.

“The living can’t touch the dead. But the dead can touch the living,” Selina answered, confusing Thomas.

“You’ve obviously had someone who was alive try and touch you or you have tried to touch them. They would have gone straight through you. But if one whom is dead tries to touch another whom is dead the two can touch,” Thomas’s hopes shattered.

“So, you’re dead?”

“Undead. I have died before but that was many centuries ago,”


	4. Chapter 4

“So what are you?” Thomas questioned as he watched Selina scrubbing the floor of the kitchen.

“Take a guess. I’ll tell you honestly if you are right or wrong,” Selina quipped as she dropped the scrubbing brush back into the filthy water. The muck on the wet floor finally coming off.

“Zombie,” Thomas tried making Selina laugh while she emptied the steel pale into the sink before refilling it with hot water from the stove top.

“Sorry but no. Brains are not that nice to eat,” Selina joked, crouching back down and scrubbing at the floor. Thomas had never seen it so clean but all the effort that Selina was putting into it was amazing and Thomas wished that he could help her.

“Poltergeist.” Thomas attempted. Selina stopped cleaning and looked up at him confused.

“From one end of the dead spectrum to the other. Not a poltergeist,” Selina explained with a broad smile on her face before she kept cleaning. She had been at this floor for three days straight and Thomas realised she truly had not slept in the two weeks she had been here.

“You have died before. Centuries ago, I might add. You don’t sleep, you don’t feel the cold. Do you eat?” Thomas asked as he ran through everything she had said or done. Selina stood up with a big smile as she looked down at the finally cleaned floor.

“Now I just have to sand it smooth. I don’t eat as such. I drink though,” Selina confirmed for Thomas before emptying the pail once more, but leaving it in the sink.

“I don’t know. What are you?” Thomas asked, standing up from the kitchen chair as Selina grabbed it to put it back at the table.

“I’m a vampire. Blood sucker,” Selina quipped, showing Thomas her fangs.

“That was not going to be any of my guesses,” Thomas admitted, laughing slightly before looking around the recently finished kitchen. The old creaky table and chairs had been thrown out and Selina bought a nicer set that Thomas had talked about. Setting it in the centre of the kitchen so he could sit with her as she cleaned and fixed the kitchen.

“Let me guess. It’s because I’m too nice to humans?” Selina inquired watching Thomas as he took in the room.

“I admit, yes. There have been lots of people here but they leave unharmed. I thought that vampires had to live off of human blood,” Thomas answered facing the vampire next to him.

“There have been no humans here in the last fortnight, Thomas. Everyone that has come here have been like you and I. Most have been zombies but some have been werewolves as well,” Selina corrected, shocking Thomas. “I feed off of animal blood because that’s how I was raised. Never harm a human,”

“You must have had very nice parents,” Thomas admitted, sorrow filling him as he remembered his child hood, or lack thereof.

“My parents were the king and queen of vampires. I never really knew them unless I was in deep trouble,” Selina admitted before nodding her head towards the library as she began walking. Thomas nodded his head before appearing in the library as Selina came in.

“Do you think your sister would forgive me if I cleaned and fixed the piano for her? I hate listening to her playing while the piano is out of tune,” Selina asked as she looked at the decrepit looking instrument.

“I don’t think she would but it would be nice either way,” Thomas stated as he glided over to the dust covered object, sighing as he remembered when Pamela would try and play.

“You’re having a happy memory. You should focus on those. It may help you to pass out of the veil,” Selina noted quietly from behind Thomas. He smiled slightly as a ghostly tear rolled down his cheek and for once since he died, he felt human.

“Where would I go? I have never been the nicest of people,” Thomas explained, moving his hand away from the piano as everything began to grow cold again.

“How many people did you kill?” Selina asked and Thomas shook his head.

“None. It has always been Lucille who killed,” Thomas admitted before gliding away from the only reminder in the room of his sister.

“Then you would go to heaven with the angels. You’d get to see light and feel warmth again, Thomas. You are not destined for pain,” Selina stated as she opened up the old piano and began work on the chords inside.

“I have lied though. I have hurt people, poisoned people. I aided my sister in the killing of people I was supposed to care for,” Thomas snapped, the room dropping in temperature as he spoke. Selina left the piano alone and walked over to Thomas, holding his hands softly as she spoke.

“Those are sins that God will forgive because you were not the one who killed them. And you died saving Edith and that, on its own, is pardon for the sins you have committed. You could be free,” Thomas nodded sadly as Selina smiled. Her kindness keeping him from going insane.

“Do you want to help me? I can help you affect inanimate objects,” Selina offered and Thomas smiled, walking over and watched as Selina went back to working on the piano.

“Calm yourself and focus on what you want to touch. But you must stay calm,” Thomas nodded and focused carefully on the wire that Selina was pointing at. After calming himself, Thomas reached for the wire and managed to knock it, sending the low note reverberating through out the old house.

“I did it,” Thomas stated to himself, ecstatic that he could touch again. Selina had helped him touch again, to feel human again.


	5. Chapter 5

“I haven’t seen Lucille in a few days now. Is that normal?” Selina asked Thomas with worry in her tone.

“I’m not sure. Until you arrived, I hadn’t seen her in 10 years. Why do you sound concerned?” Thomas asked placing his book down. Grateful that he could touch everything again, since he had never finished his book and had left it on a cliff hanger the last time.

“I’m just worried about what she might be up to. There are some things that shouldn’t be messed around with, especially when you’re dead. I’m concerned she may be messing with something sinister,” Selina answered as she placed one of the books back on one of the recently finished bookshelves.

“I’m sure she isn’t. She may have been cold blooded but she never had a death wish,” Thomas answered as he got off of his chair and glided over to help Selina.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Can you pass me Sherlock Holmes please?” Selina asked as she pointed to the book in question. Thomas grabbed the book and like every other time, smiled to himself as he felt the weight of the pages in his hands and the texture of the cover against his thumbs before he passed it to Selina.

“You look like a child in a sweet shop, Thomas.” Selina explained softly as she placed the book on the shelf with all of the other crime novels in the household, finally finishing that genre.

“Romance or action next?” Selina questioned as she turned to the two ginormous mounds of books on the second floor of the library.

“Romance,” Thomas answered as he grabbed Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from the top of the pile and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, a smile creeping onto his face.

“Are you a fan of the genre Sir Sharpe?” Selina questioned as she grabbed another of the Bronte sister’s books and set it aside for it to be properly organised later.

“Of course. Are you not Ms Allerton?” Thomas asked as he placed the two books he held in their piles and grabbed another couple to sort out.

“Romance is for those seeking pleasure and the long term company of the opposing sex Sir Thomas. I am more of an action fan,” Selina answered as she grabbed the books out of Thomas’s hands and put them aside, her whole body facing him.

“A person seeking more than a mundane life with thrill and excitement entwined into every waking moment. Quite the choice for a person like you,” Thomas replied with a smile quirking on his lips.

“A person like me?” Selina questioned as she tried to conceal the smile that was trying to find a way onto her face.

“A vampire. A person hundreds of years old and lives a life full of adventure already and yet you live far from civilization, on an abandoned mountain with ghosts and nothing much to do.” Thomas explained and Selina smiled broadly.

“And yet, one ghost that I know seeks companionship but apparently a vampire isn’t enough,” Selina joked as she turned back around and began to sort the books again, her long black dress pooling around her as she crouched down.

“When did I ever say that?” Thomas questioned as he knelt down in Selina’s way, eyes seeking an honest answer from her.

“I never said you did, as I never said that I wanted adventure or to live a life of thrills. One chooses a genre that is generally opposite of their life as it has more appeal. Why would someone who investigates crime scenes as a career choose to read crime novels? They wouldn’t or at least not on a regular basis. It would be repetitive and annoying to them. That is why we read what we do,” Selina explained, her voice getting quieter as she spoke. She and Thomas had been getting closer to one another but the sound of a scream from upstairs made the two part quickly.

Thomas passed through the floors and up to the attic while Selina used her inhuman speed to run up the stairs. The two found Lucille cowering in a corner, black shadows surrounding her form as they flickered from the candles light.

“What happened?” Selina asked, concern evident in her voice and Thomas’s eyes were wide as he looked at the colours that Lucille now showed, the black sunken face reformed into a ghostly white of her original appearance.

“They... they’re… we’re all going to die,” Lucille stammered as deep groans began to fill the attic from Thomas’s workshop.

“Who? Lucille who?” Selina asked as Thomas headed for the closed door to his workshop.

“The shadows,” Lucille whispered as Thomas opened the door. Inside were solid black forms crawling out of a large pot of some kind. Their forms appearing as distorted humans with blood red eyes and sharp claws and teeth, the mouth barely indistinguishable from the rest of the body.

“THOMAS! CLOSE THE DOOR!” Selina screamed and Thomas slammed the door shut as one of the shadows ran towards him.

“Can they pass through doors?” Thomas asked as he locked the door.

“Not easily. They will be after someone certain.” Selina answered before shaking Lucille lightly to try and rouse her from her shocked state. “Lucille, what did you do? Lucille, I need to know. What did you do?”

“The book,” Lucille managed out but her whole body was shaking.

“There was a black book in my drawers. Did you use it?” Selina asked with panic in her voice. Lucille nodded her head quickly and the horror on Selina’s face made Thomas worry more.

“We need to get out of here now,” Selina answered as she picked up Lucille and ran down to the foyer on the ground floor.

“We can’t leave,” Thomas said fearful.

“Shit. Lucille, what did you do can you remember?” Lucille shook her head as the door upstairs could be heard breaking open.

“Is there somewhere that has lead lining?” Selina asked as the shadows come flooding down the stair case.

“The basement,” Thomas answered as he grabbed Lucille. “This way,”

“Go, you will need to take the elevator and then deactivate it. Ghosts can’t pass through lead either,” Selina answered as she pushed open the front doors.

“Where are you going?” Thomas called out, turning to face Selina.

“There is another way into the basement. If I can get through there then so can the shadows,” Selina answered before running out into the burning summer sunlight with shadows chasing after her, some of them disappearing as they followed. Thomas quickly ran to the elevator and sent it down as the shadows came running for him and his sister.

“We’re all going to die,” Lucille said quietly, her voice shaking as she rocked herself back and forth slightly in Thomas’s arms.

“No we won’t.” Thomas comforted and once again he could feel the emotions he had for his sister beginning to bloom in his chest.


	6. Chapter 6

“Why did you use Selina’s book?” Thomas questioned as the two ghosts waited in the basement, the round tubs filled with the crimson clay surrounding them. Both ghosts were uncomfortable being down here and the screeching and deep groaning noises from upstairs did not aid their discomfort.

“I wanted to get revenge on you for having chosen Edith over me and now you’re in love with her,” Lucille answered morbidly as she motioned her head to the only surviving entrance and exit to the basement.

“I am not in love with her, Lucille. But she is the first person to enter… the mansion since Edith left,” Thomas answered slowing his words at the end as both ghosts looked to the roof when they heard a loud snap. The tiled roof was beginning to crack in places and the powdered dust fell around the two ghosts and Selina was still nowhere to be found.

“I couldn’t read most of the book. It was in another language so I chose a random page and read it aloud. I didn’t know this is what was going to happen,” Lucille noted quietly as the snapping above them stopped, the crack no longer growing.

“You shouldn’t mess with things you don’t understand,” Thomas sighed before sitting down next to his sister, she held her knees close to her chest and the white night gown gripped to her legs before contrasting with the crimson red at the hem.

“I was angry,” Lucille snapped; Thomas raised his hands slightly in surrender.

“And your anger has always led to death. Try and relax, Lucille. Try and forget the past,” Thomas responded softly, trying not to further anger his emotionally unstable sister. Before Lucille could say anything, a loud clang of metal could be heard before the machine at the entrance to the basement was slowly pulled out. Dust, clay and rocks fell into the gap making small sounds as they hit the floor but they were drowned out by the creaking and groaning of the metal.

A loud snap filled the basement and echoed around the tiles before pieces of metal fell down the empty tunnel leading to the basement. There were loud screeches filling the house now and then pitiful screams of pain sounding inhuman to the ears of the ghosts below. The sounds echoed and reverberated through the small area until they all stopped. There was no sound. No squeak of a mouse, no crunching of dead leaves and no creaking and groaning of metal.

Thomas stood up from his spot and began to slowly move towards the only exit, he couldn’t see anything except for the bright sunlight and the dirt walls of the tunnel. When he was standing directly at the exit he could see part of his machine blocking the exit from the top with pieces stuck in the bottom of the tunnel, partly consumed by the red clay. The sunlight flittered through the gaps and occasionally blinded the hovering ghost but otherwise there was nothing up there and Thomas wondered what had happened to Selina.

“What’s going on?” Lucille’s scared whisper frightened Thomas but he sighed quietly.

“I don’t know but I can’t see or hear anything,” Thomas answered in an equally quiet voice when an ear splitting scream filled the basement, the voice recognisable as Selina’s. Thomas shot up the tunnel but found that he couldn’t get through his machine.

 _“Ghosts can’t pass through lead either,”_ His machine was made with lead and he couldn’t get though it or the rest of the basement or tunnel. He turned around and went to the elevator entrance and looked up, the elevator itself is made of steel and so are the wires and mechanics that make it work. He took a moment to calm himself before slowly exiting through the elevator hatch, the elevator having been broken by himself and Lucille to deactivate it.

At the top of the elevator shaft there was no noise again and there was no movement. Quietly Thomas climbed out of the shaft and began to move around slowly and quietly realising that the house was darker than it normally is.

“STOP!” A scream filled the house and Thomas turned his head to look straight up, she was in the attic. Thomas kept his feet off of the floor and glided over to the stairs out in the foyer, the sunlight glistening on the glass windows and the mirrors. Dust caught in the golden rays fell slowly towards the floor with disregard to everything that was going on. The house was loud with silence and blinded with the darkness.

Slowly moving up the stairs, Thomas caught sight of his sister popping her head out of the elevator shaft. She held her arms up to question what Thomas was doing. He pointed to himself and then up the stairs before pointing to her and pointing down. She shook her head before looking down briefly and nodding, quickly disappearing back down the elevator shaft.

Thomas looked around briefly before continuing up the old staircase, he knew if he was alive his heart would be hammering in his chest as adrenalin floods his body. Another blood curdling scream filled the house before cutting off suddenly. Too suddenly. Thomas rushed the rest of the way by skipping the second and third floors and appearing in the attic. A soft orange glow emanated from his workshop, the door half closed and blocking his view but the extreme darkness around him stopped him from moving.

It’s not that the house was dark, it’s that there are more shadows than normal. He shot back out into the open air with just a moment to spare before the shadows began to curl around the area, some jumping to try and reach him but they were unable to get him.

Their teeth were covered in a wet black substance that dripped down and onto the floor. Their eyes seeming to mock him as their screeches filled his ears and the space around him. The foyer floor was now covered with black moving creatures and so were the stairs and edges of all of the floors. The darkness squirming and contorting but his eyes were drawn back to the attic when some colour came out of his workshop door.

“SELINA!” Thomas called out when he saw her unconscious form dangling like a ragdoll from the hands of some shadows, her body mutilated with scratches and cuts.


	7. Chapter 7

Thomas kept hovering, barely out of the shadows reach as one continues to wave Selina’s form to mock and tease Thomas. He flinched and snapped his head away when a shadow sunk it’s morphed teeth into her flesh, a crunching sound emanating around him as the shadow hit the bone. Thomas felt a tear streaming down his cheek and fall from his chin as more followed. As he glanced down he saw Lucille creeping out of the library, heading for the front door.

“Lucille?” Thomas questioned himself quietly. Lucille looked up into the air and sent Thomas a soft, apologetic smile as she opened the doors soundlessly before she slammed the doors closed again. She hadn’t moved and all of the shadows turned to face her.

“Save her,” Lucille’s voice was quiet but determined once it reached Thomas’s ears and the shadows rushed for Lucille.

“LUCILLE!” Thomas cried out as he watched as his sister’s form vanish from sight with a wave of darkness following after her, everything evil on her tail and no longer between him and Selina. He hesitated a moment between going and helping his sister or saving Selina, the choice made for him when he heard his sister’s words echoing in his head.

 _“Save her,”_ Thomas sped over to Selina and found that she was barely breathing. As he lifted her form into his arms he noticed the book out of the corner of his eye. It lay on his desk thrown open to a particular page but unguarded. Thomas glanced around before he left Selina’s side and cautiously pushed the workshop door open and risked a glance behind him. There was no one else and nothing in sight that would want to kill him. As he took his next step the floor beneath him creaked quietly and a growl filled his ears.

“Don’t move,” Selina’s voice whispered, filled with pain and Thomas hesitated in turning around. He could see a black creature walking towards him but it seemed to be feeling around but Selina was awake and still very injured.

“They can’t see… still objects,” Selina rasped out, her voice breaking momentarily. “You need to be able to pass through objects… it won’t be able to touch you,” The creature walked forwards, it’s breath fanning over Thomas. The putrid smell making him grateful he was dead.

“THOMAS!” Thomas closed his eyes as tears began to burn their way down his cheeks, Lucille’s scream pulling choked sobs from his throat. The creature in front of him stalked past, blood eyes focused on the inhuman sounds coming from below. As the creature passed through Thomas, he shivered and let out a shaky breath. Thomas rushed forwards and grabbed the book, turning to find the creature had vanished into the growing darkness as the final summer sun dipped below the horizon.

“Can you walk?” Thomas questioned Selina as he reached her form.

“No. You need to help your sister,” Selina implored. Thomas shook his head and placed the book on Selina’s stomach, laying her hands over the cracked, black leather.

“I’m getting you to safety first,” Thomas whispered before lifting Selina from the ground, a pained gasp escaping her lips, followed by a whimper.

“Breathe,” Thomas whispered as he floated off of the balcony from the attic, descending softly down to the first floor. No looming cold waited for them below but Thomas felt unease as he began to descend down the elevator shaft to the basement below.

“Thomas…” “Don’t speak. Rest,” Thomas ordered, cutting Selina off when she began to speak.

“No, look. There,” Selina weakly pointed to some paper stabbed onto the lone suitcase waiting in the tiled horrors below the house. Thomas rested Selina against the curved wall, holding back the crimson clay before floating over to the damaged paper.

“What is it?” Selina asked as a tear rolled softly down Thomas’s creamy white cheek.

“A letter from Lucille,” Thomas mourned before passing the offending object to Selina.

_My dearest Thomas,_

_I have always taken care of you when you were at your most heart broken and today, I saw that same broken look on your face. The look of pain and loss. The second time it has been because of me that those emotions have filled your heart and torn away the joyous smile I fell in love with._

_I cannot be the one that keeps that smile from your face, not again, she gave you back your smile. I have seen your admiration and love for Selina, everytime the two of you were together. It’s a look you have not given me for many years. Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close to you and yet I am filled with joy at seeing you happy once more, and that part of me is happy that she can give you what you want._

_I know you stopped loving me long ago but I hated thinking about it, I believed that our love would relight again and last eternity. That if we were to end, it would be naturally once we died in our final years but love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing._ _Ours died because of my ignorance._

_Please don’t cry for me and do not mourn, I have caused you too much pain to deserve that. Some people are going to leave, but that's not the end of your story. That's the end of their part in your story. And this, this is mine._

_I will wait to see a smile on your face again, even if it was not me who got to put it there. I will always love you, Thomas and I hope that you will be able to spend many years to come with Selina. I hope that one day, you will be able to forgive the pain and torment that I have caused you over the years._

_Love always,_

_Lucille xxx_


	8. Chapter 8

“Go help her,” Selina ordered weakly after she looked up from the letter in her hands. Thomas floated beneath the elevator shaft, staring back up into the refurbished house. The palpable, deathly silence that descended from above was the only reminder that Lucille was up there and the only thing suggesting that she probably wasn’t alive anymore.

“We can help her by getting rid of those things,” Thomas said in defeat, an unknown emotion to the sorrow-filled ghost.

“How would you suggest we do that?” Selina asked with a slight bit of sass in her tone.

“Undo the spell. If we know what spell she did we can undo it right?” Thomas asked looking to the injured vampire, her major wounds didn’t look any better but her minor wounds healing slowly yet nowhere near fast enough for her to move let alone undo a spell.

“Even if I was well, Thomas… we couldn’t undo that spell or bind them to a master,” Selina explained with an exhausted sigh. Her dark hair was tangled and her skin more pale than normal but her eyes showed just how terrible she was. Their normal calm ocean blue was pale and washed out, their colour seeming to have completely drained until they were a shade of grey.

“And why not? Can you not read the spell book?” Thomas growled in anger and frustration. The look of shock and annoyance on Selina’s face made him regret his words instantly.

“Yes, I can read it. And I had been thinking of asking if you’d like me to bring you back from the dead but since you’re going to be such a tosser enjoy eternity,” Selina snapped before she vanished out of sight. He could hear a broken sound from the other end of the basement and knew that Selina was down there in more pain than before but he made no move to follow after her. He had learnt that when she sped away like that, no matter how much pain she is in physically or emotionally, she didn’t want to be disturbed.

Thomas sighed and looked at the crumpled letter that his sister had written as well as the black leather bound spell book beneath. He floated slowly over to the old book and opened it. Each page was yellowed with age and had rips on the outer side of the parchment. Each flip of a black scribble covered page revealed the age of the book as the stiff yet fragile paper refused to bend under Thomas’s touch. Creases were now permanently a part of each page and Thomas could smell the musky scent of smoke and dust in the air as he flipped each page.

“Wow,” Thomas said with a sigh of exasperation. Each page, if not filled with illegible words from another language, were covered in the mad drawings of someone who had clearly seen a lot of death and torment. The pictures were the only clear thing in the book and they were all gruesome to say the least.

As Thomas flipped another page, he recognised the following symbols and writing to be the same one that the book had been opened to up in his old workshop. The pictures on this page were completely black and seemed to be eating the carrion of a human.

“How can you read this?” Thomas asked softly with genuine curiosity filling his tone. He kept looking at the page as he tried to make out what the words were but couldn’t decipher the jamble of symbols and letter type shapes on the page.

“It’s vampiric. You have no chance of being able to read it,” Selina stated from near the tunnel that Thomas’s machine used to occupy. Thomas looked over to the sound of her voice and decided to risk her wrath; he took silent steps on the tiled floor beneath him until he saw Selina laying on the ground. Her legs were bent awkwardly and her hair was splayed out beneath her head giving her a dark halo of hair.

“Let’s say that you get a lot better, could we undo the spell?” Thomas inquired and the exasperated sigh did not help to lift Thomas’s hope and did not make him feel very confident in talking to her at the time.

“Turn the page,” Selina stated simply as she tried to sit up. Thomas put the book on the floor and helped her to sit up and lean against the basement wall before going back to the book. He grabbed the page and flipped it to find the most inner part of a page but the rest had been torn completely from the book. There was at least 4 pages missing from the book.

“Where are they?” Thomas inquired as he sat down next to Selina.

“If you want to help your sister, then you need to help me find those pages. One of them is how to banish those shadows forever and it will pull their latest victim back up from hell. Their last victim was your sister,” Selina explained as Thomas ran his left index finger along the remnants of the pages.

“But I can’t leave here. I’ve tried,” Thomas lamented as he felt a ghostly tear fall down his cheek.

“Dead you can’t. But the living can,” Selina pointed out before she reached a weak hand over to the book and flipped the pages further back to the start.

“What is it?” Thomas questioned. Shock covering his face as he thought about Selina’s words.

“I’ll tell you the words to this spell so you can perform it. This will heal my wounds and then I’ll bring you back from the dead… kind of,” Selina answered. Thomas knew that his heart would have stopped had he been alive.

“Why would you do that?” He inquired, looking at Selina.

“If you remain as a ghost for much longer you will go insane and you won’t recognise yourself anymore. You won’t be you. I can stop that from happening if you want me to but you don’t have to,” Selina answered as she ripped the last page from the book and began writing English words down using the blood from one of her wounds and a long sharp nail as a pen.

“You said kind of. Why did you say that?” Thomas pushed after a few minutes silence.

“There is a side effect to the spell. Because you are already dead you can’t be made human but there are other variations of the living that are already dead,” Selina answered as she handed the piece of paper to Thomas, her blood writing finished.

“Vampire,” Thomas whispered under his breath as he read the words on the page.

“That’s only one,”


	9. Chapter 9

“Do I need to do anything else?” Thomas questioned as he read the words.

“No. It’s the simplest spell in the book and requires nothing but for the words to be said aloud,” Selina responded while she laid down against the wall, her body shuddering with each movement. Thomas looked at the wounded vampire with confusion etched onto his white face. Selina nodded her head in encouragement and closed her eyes. As Thomas scanned over her body, he would have deemed her dead because there was no rise and fall in her chest.

“Heal these wounds and heal this mind. Forge together those that wish to kill. Do not allow for the loss of life, do not allow for torture and torment and heal the wounds on this dying body,” Thomas recited, having troubles making sure that he repeated all of the words and in the right order. A soft hum filled the air, so soft that if there had been any other noise, he wouldn’t have heard it.

Thomas watched as the gashes covering Selina’s body slowly pulled together, the blood having stopped flowing from the wounds. The bruises faded from purple to blue to yellow to green and then they were gone. Each and every discolouration or wound was gone in seconds and no scars remained on her pale white skin. When her eyes opened, the same vibrant ocean blue filled the iris again but a tinge of red invaded the edge around the pupil.

“Thank you,” there was an edge to her voice, Tom recognised it as hunger.

“Uh,” Thomas hesitated as he tried to find the words to say. Despite knowing he was dead, Thomas feared what she would do to him. Before either could say anything the sound of the shadows above filled the basement, the screech that could turn blood to ice and screeching and skittering around the elevator shaft that made both Selina and Thomas snap their attention to that end of the basement.

“Go while you can,” Thomas implored the hungry vampire. Selina sat bolt upright and moved onto her knees, grabbing Thomas’s hovering hands.

“I’m not leaving you here with them, Thomas. I can do a spell to bring you back but you need to give consent,” Selina begged as dust and chunks of wood began to fall to the tiles underneath the house after bouncing off of the broken elevator.

“To help my sister,” Thomas agreed with a slight nod of his head.

“Doloris vulnus sanandum est. Ac sana mente ad injurias animus lateribus ligare vulnera. Trahere et simul oriuntur novae atque maniplos vitae formam immortui,” Selina recited, the size of the falling debris increasing the closer to the end of the spell that she got. A bright glow began surrounding Thomas, made of small golden orbs.

Thomas could feel heat radiating from the orbs and onto his arms, legs, everywhere. It was a welcomed feeling to the normal cold that he was used to. He wasn’t sure how to describe the sensation he was feeling, the hard rubbing feeling over his body combined with a warming throb in his chest.

The sound of metal smashing pulled his thoughts away from the intensifying feeling in his body and made him turn around. Selina grabbed Thomas’s shoulder and pulled him backwards as the shadows landed on the broken elevator and growled at them.

“Thomas we must leave. Now,” Selina begged as she grabbed Thomas’s hand and pulled. The moment that Thomas took his eyes away from the dark and evil creature, it roared out and more flooded down into the basement.

“Come on!” Selina screamed. Thomas turned around and ran up the shaft after Selina. She carried the front of her red dress, despite the rips through the scarlet fabric. At the top of the shaft, Selina began climbing through the mangled metal contraption that had once been Thomas’s machine. Thomas began to slow down as he remembered that he could not pass through the tangled heap.

“Hurry Thomas!” Selina cried out from the other side of the mess. When Thomas still hadn’t moved and the creatures were beginning to claw their way up to him, Selina reached through and grabbed Thomas’s hand and pulled. His arm passed through the space and onto the outside where Selina stood.

Thomas’s eyes widened in shock and confusion but was quickly dismissed as he began climbing through the metal. Thomas barely scraped through before the shadow creatures reached the metal, hissing and screaming when they couldn’t reach their prey. Thomas took the moment to look at his hands, his clothes and even his hair. It was opaque again. He couldn’t believe it when he looked at his clothes to see the full colour had returned to them, the dried blood the reminder of how he had died.

“Yes, it’s gone. No scar either,” Selina noted in slight amusement when Thomas began feeling his cheek for the fatal wound that Lucille had delivered all those years ago.

“What now?” Thomas asked as he looked at the outside of the mansion for the first time since Edith’s departure.

“We need to find that page. If we find it we can save your sister and get rid of them once and for all,” Selina answered as she pointed to the dark, still tunnel. The shadows waiting on the brown dirt walls, waiting for an unsuspecting victim.

“Do we need the book?” Thomas asked as he peered back down the tunnel to see that Selina’s spell book was still at the bottom and opened to the page she had used on Thomas.

“Damn it. We will but for now we can try to find the page,” Selina responded as she too looked down to see the book well out of reach.

“Where do we start looking?” Thomas questioned as he went to take a step out of the shade that the mansion created in the late afternoon sun.

“We start with you putting this on,” Selina responded as she grabbed Thomas and pulled him back into the shade. She handed him an old ring and his first thought was that it was his mother’s old ring. The one that he had given to Edith as an engagement ring.

“I know what you’re thinking and I promise you that it isn’t. There are two types of rings like this, Thomas. One for the hunters and one for the vampires,” Selina answered Thomas’s unasked question as she slid the ring onto Thomas’s left middle finger.

“I don’t understand,” confusion filling Thomas’s voice as he spoke.

“Vampires burn up in the daylight. This will allow you to walk out in the open at any time and blend into society,” Selina explained before walking towards the long dirt path that led away from the mansion.

“Anything else that I should know?” Thomas inquired forcefully, annoyed that Selina hadn’t explained any of this to him.

“I will explain everything in depth when we are away from them. We don’t have long before they will be able to come after us, Thomas. We need to get moving now,” Selina answered truthfully. “A little up ahead there is a house that I bought. There is a clean set of clothes that we can change into, okay?”

“Alright,” Thomas answered, deciding to let up on the hatred that had begun to burn for Selina until he had his sister back.


	10. Chapter 10

It didn’t take long for Thomas to get the hang of the new speed he could run at but stopping and slowing down were still problematic. He looked up at the purple sky above him, watching the colours mix together in a pattern unique only to that night.

“Did you want some help?” Selina asked as she walked into his field of vision, she had a rabbit in her hands and blood dripping down her chin.

“Why can’t I just stop?” Thomas asked rhetorically in a groan while he got up off of the forest floor below him. He dusted off the leaves, twigs and dirt that clung to the dirt ridden clothes that he was still wearing.

“You’ll get the hang of it soon, Thomas. When you want to stop you need to start slowing down gradually for about 8 seconds before you reach the spot, okay?” Selina encouraged. An elegant deep green dress hugged her body tightly, showing off all of her curves and revealing some cleavage before loosening out into a flowing skirt that was being moved by the light wind that surrounded the two vampires.

“Okay,” Thomas sighed before he tried again. He ran to a tree about 500 metres from where the house was, did a large circle and began coming back. He waited for the point that he had counted as 8 seconds from the house and began slowing down. He loved the rush of wind in his face but realised he had waited too long to slow down. He tried to slow down faster but tripped over a tree root and tumbled to the ground. The momentum he had built up pushing him along and head first into the side of the wooden cottage.

“You okay?” Selina asked wincing at how much that would have hurt. The sound alone making her cringe.

“You said 8 seconds!” Thomas snapped at the older vampire. Annoyance evident as he got up off the forest floor again, blood trickling down his face in crimson rivulets.

“Here,” Selina offered Thomas her hand and he begrudgingly accepted.

“Ready,” Thomas said softly as he took a deep breath. The two began running, doing the same circuit that Thomas had been doing for the better part of an hour.

“You’ve been slowing down and then counting to 8. You need to start now,” Selina stated having still not started to slow her movements. The two hadn’t yet finished the circle to head back to the house when Selina started to slow her pace, counting aloud for Thomas to hear.

“One. Two,” They finished the circle and began the straight stretch back and Thomas was managing to keep pace with Selina.

“Three. Four. Five,” Thomas could see the house coming into view from where they were, he worried they would hit it again.

“Six. Seven. Eight,” As Selina finished counting the two were stood just outside the door to the house. Thomas was stunned as he looked at the wood in front of him.

“You count from when you start but you won’t be at full speed from there. So when you start slowing down from your 8 second mark, you are already going too fast to stop in time,” Selina explained and Thomas closed his eyes in annoyance.

“I should have already known that,” Thomas snapped at himself. He felt angrier than he had ever felt and at the same time he felt more sorrow in that one moment than every other bit of sorrow combined.

“Thomas?” Selina’s voice was laced with concern as she rested her hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

“What?” Thomas snapped, not looking towards Selina. He could hear her sigh before her hand moved away. Thomas waited patiently but when she continued to say nothing he looked up to find that she was gone. He stood outside the house for what felt like hours, staring into the now black forest that surrounded him. A soft orange glow crept out of the house through the windows and the gaps in the doors as a weak caress on his cheek brought his memories forwards. He waited for a long time but couldn’t hear a sound from anywhere apart from the slight rustling of leaves above head. The caress stopped and Thomas looked for the source, finding nothing.

He turned away from the house and decided to do something that would surely get him killed; he ran back towards the mansion. The sound of twigs snapping brought Selina out of her quiet sorrow as she watched a blur sprint the same way that she and Thomas had just come from.

“THOMAS?!” Selina called out and when there was no reply she worried more. She ran inside the house to find that he had not entered but he no longer stood outside the door where she had left him.

She rushed back towards the mansion with fear filling her blood. She hadn’t gotten to tell him that the shadows hunt better at night and now he was returning to them. She pushed her body as hard as she could, not letting up as her legs screamed for a break. She could just make out the mansion in the distance and Thomas standing just outside the gate looking at the looming darkness that waited for him.

“Thomas! What are you doing?” Selina cried out when she reached him. He turned to face her and Selina could see the slight red that was in his eyes. Not the red of hunger that vampires got, but the redness that told others someone had been crying.

“Is it selfish to want to look for my sister, regardless of the danger?” Thomas questioned as he looked back to the mansion that looked like it was beginning to move as it morphed with the increasing darkness.

“Right now it is; you know that she isn’t there anymore and now those creatures know where we are. We can’t stay in England any longer,” Selina huffed, clearly out of breath.

“Where would we go?” Thomas asked in annoyance.

“Right now, Cyprus. If the page has already been found then it will be there,” Selina stated as she tried to pull Thomas away as a wave of darkness rushed towards them, the moon hiding behind the clouds to wait out the carnage that was surely coming.

“And if it’s not?” Thomas asked.

“This is not the time. WE. NEED. TO. GO.” Selina snapped as she used her strength to pull Thomas away.


	11. Chapter 11

Thomas watched as Selina spoke in hushed tones with a man at the docks in London. He sat on one of the crates as he rested his aching legs. He wore a new suit that Selina had taken from the cottage as they ran away from the shadows that were still chasing them but hopefully they had enough time to get away before something went wrong.

A caress began on his cheek again, the feeling was familiar but Thomas couldn’t find out why or what was causing the sensation. As Thomas glanced over to the side where the caress was coming from, he caught a glimpse of Selina walking back over to him. With no evidence of someone caressing his cheek, Thomas ignored the feeling and stood up to talk to Selina.

“Earliest we can leave is tonight but I don’t think that will be soon enough,” Selina explained as she looked over her shoulder and back at the werewolf that she was talking to.

“So what do you suggest?” Thomas inquired as he glowered at the werewolf when he began checking out Selina. Thomas returned his attention to Selina when she sighed.

“My only other thought is that we try pirates, see if they will take us to Cyprus,” she explained. Thomas watched her hair as the curls were tugged into her face by the soft wind the hushed through the alley they stood by.

“Which would be quicker?” Thomas asked as he grabbed a single curl and tucked it behind Selina’s ear, the pad of his finger brushing against her soft, alabaster skin. He watched her eyes flutter shut for a moment before opening again, piercing straight into his eyes.

“It would be quicker to wait until tonight because there is no guarantee of pirates being anywhere nearby,” Selina answered looking away from Thomas as she explained herself. He rested a hand under her chin and tilted her face, forcing her to look at him.

“Then we will wait and hope for the best. In the meantime perhaps we should find something to eat,” Thomas suggested. The two stood still for what seemed like a lifetime just staring into each other’s eyes before finally the sound of an all too familiar voice filled the alleyway, startling Thomas.

“Please be careful with that Victoria,” Thomas turned his head to the feminine voice and if he weren’t already dead his heart would have stopped.

“Do you know her?” Selina asked quietly as a woman walked behind a young girl, a man following behind with an infant in his arms.

“Yes. She was there when I died,” Thomas whispered, trying to drag his attention away from Edith.

“We need to get out of here now then, Thomas. If she knows you were dead then she cannot see you,” Selina explained as she grabbed Thomas’s hand and pulled on his arm slightly, trying to get him to at the very least turn away from the approaching family. As Thomas began to turn away there was a gasp the filled the air and broke the silent hideaway Thomas and Selina had kept.

“Edith?” Selina grabbed Thomas’s arm and pulled hard while the woman’s husband tried to gain her attention. The two vampires ran as fast as they could to the other side of the port, abandoning their shelter for the time being.

“How bad is it that she saw me?” Thomas asked able to hear Edith’s voice still.

“Well that depends, is she likely to pass it off as a hallucination or will she begin a vampire hunt?” Selina inquired and the silence that emanated from Thomas only confirmed the problems that the two would be facing should they be seen by this ‘Edith’ again.

The two remained in silence and buried in their thoughts on what had just happened. Thomas wondered what Edith had thought when she saw him again. Was it anger? Fear? Sorrow? Did she wish him dead or would she have tried to embrace him? Thomas found that his mind wandered to another place as he remembered the distinct sweet smell that had filled the air when the young girl had entered the alleyway. He could smell her blood and hear her heart as it beat in her chest.

Selina shook away her thoughts when she caught a glimpse of Thomas’s lips twitching. She focused on him and saw his mouth twist and move in pain and hunger, his eyes a deep red as he looked at something across the port. Selina turned her attention to what he was looking at and saw Edith kneeling on the ground in tears, the two children surrounding her as their father comforted her.

“Thomas, don’t.” Selina growled lowly, knowing what was running through his mind.

“Why not?” He growled aggressively, prepared to fight Selina if he had to. He was hungry and he was jealous, what better way to get rid of both problems than to kill Alan?

“We have enough problems as it is right now, we don’t need to add another to the mix,” Selina answered and Thomas sighed. She was right and Thomas hated it. Something inside of him screamed at him to get rid of the pain and jealousy that filled him but the hurt and loneliness of not having his sister was far worse.

“I never realised how much I needed my sister until now,” Thomas whispered after a period of silence.

“What do you mean?” Selina asked, watching Thomas as he sat down on a crate along the side of the port.

“I’ve spent every day of my life with my sister except for a few but I had always thought that she was suffocating me, a looming shadow holding me away from what I had always wanted. I’m not going to say that she wasn’t but I have become so used to it that even when I hadn’t seen her in the 10 years that we were ghosts, I knew she was still there and I didn’t feel alone,” Thomas explained looking at the ground at his feet.

“You will get her back, Thomas. It’s just going to take time for us to find the missing page,” Selina responded, her heart aching as she realised that Thomas either didn’t love her or loved his sister more than her. Maybe making him a vampire wasn’t a smart move.


	12. Chapter 12

As the sun began to set over the port, Thomas and Selina boarded their ship to take them to Cyprus. The two had remained in silence which only made Selina’s mind wander further; it only made her question her actions more. Maybe she really shouldn’t have turned him. He was currently standing on the deck and watching the quickly retreating land mass called England, the sun was barely up still but it was enough for them to not have any need to fear the Shadows that were undoubtedly coming.

“Are you just going to stare at me?” the slight chill of his tone shocked Selina. She kept her face neutral as she walked over to the railing and looked over the ocean next to Thomas.

“Why were you staring?” Selina swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to think of something believable and quick.

“I was just thinking of what people will say when they see you in Cyprus,” Selina responded, to her fortune, after realising that she had still not told Thomas what was in Cyprus.

“Why?” Thomas inquired, turning to look down at Selina’s shorter frame. He keeps thinking about his sister and then he sees her and can’t get her out of his head. She is stunning and he was sure that he loved her but he couldn’t deny the emotions that he still felt for his sister, despite having been trying to hide them for years.

“That’s where the Vampiric royal family live. You’re still learning how to adjust to your new found strength and speed and other vampires will notice that,” her voice was soft and he could see that she was lying but there had to be a reason for her lie or she would have told him the truth as she always had.

“Is that a bad thing?” He inquired, looking away from Selina and back over the ocean.

“It could be but not likely,” she admitted.

“What do you mean?” Selina sighed. If she admitted the truth to him, would he turn her away?

“You’re the first turned vampire I have been the cause of. The first always has the most powerful connection between the original vampire and the turned vampire,” Selina admitted, not daring to take her eyes off of the waves near the ship, watching them as they slapped pitifully against the wood.

“What are you saying?” Thomas inquired turning to the woman beside him, Selina caught his movement out the corner of his eyes.

“It hurts. For a vampire to turn someone, dead or alive, it hurts a lot. After the first person, it hurts less and becomes a weaker connection between the original and the turned. Vampires won’t turn just anyone,” She explained before turning away from the railings and heading to the hammock below deck that the captain had given her. On any normal ship it would take close to a week to get to Cyprus but on a supernatural ship, it’d take less than 12 hours.

Every time footsteps began to descend to the same level, Selina would pretend she were asleep so that, if it were Thomas, he would not disturb her to ask questions. The smell of salt water mixed with the undisputable scent of vomit coming from the deck below. Surely a cargo of humans judging by the sourness of the scents. Selina closed her eyes as another set of footfalls descended. She could hear the persons footsteps getting closer and closer to her until they stopped by her side. A low creak filled the space as whom she assumed was Thomas got into his hammock.

“Why would you turn me? I get it when you said you didn’t want to leave me with the shadows but why would you put yourself through pain to save me?” Selina sighed lightly before moving slightly, her body actually trying to shut down for the night but she desperately wanted to hear more of what Thomas had to say. There were a few minutes of silence and Selina feared he had fallen asleep or knew that she was actually awake but she heard him sigh in relief soon after.

“That was close,” he laughed slightly before he brushed his fingers over her face. She looked so peaceful in her sleep. Her skin was soft and the feeling of her curls tangling around his fingers as he brushed them through her hair made something primal stir in his body.

“I don’t know what you do to me but it confuses my feelings. I can never get you off my mind, not since the day I first saw you. But at the same time, there were so many things you should have told me before you turned me but you didn’t. There were so many things you should have said but kept to yourself long before Lucille performed that spell,” Thomas stopped and took a few deep breaths, his hand still running through Selina’s hair as his heart felt like it was going to break out of his chest.

“I want to say that I love you but I don’t know if I can trust you enough to admit it to myself, let alone you,” he retracted his hand from Selina’s body and felt that softest breath of air pass over his neck as if someone were going to begin laying kisses along the soft skin.

“I hope I can trust you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive than when you’ve been around,” Thomas admitted before leaning over to Selina’s hammock and pressing his lips lightly against her temple, breathing in her scent as he retracted from her form.


	13. Chapter 13

Thomas awoke to the sound of yelling above deck, sunlight beginning to stream in through the hatch nearby. He glanced over to Selina’s hammock to see that she wasn’t there. As he got up, he began to regret confessing his feelings slightly the previous night, fearing that it might make it worse for him. He disregarded his thoughts of self-defeat and climbed onto the deck to see Selina standing at the railing, her hair being whipped viciously by the strong winds, water slapping against the ship in waves before splashing up the side of the rotting wood and falling onto the deck. Drenching the working supernatural creatures but illuminating the darkness that filled the older vampire. Scaring, yet alluring, Thomas to the stunning woman as his feet moved without consent.

“And you thought I was staring yesterday. I believe you might be worse than I,” Thomas found himself shaking his head with a slight smile on his lips as Selina’s statement filled his ears.

“As bad as each other. How long do you believe it will take to find page should it be here?” Thomas questioned, hearing a slightly defeated sigh from Selina. Selina dropped her head ever so slightly before raising it and looking at the man who stood next to her. His hair was dark and seemed to match a morbid soul that hid in his beautiful blue eyes.

“It could take an hour or it could take several months, possibly years. Cyprus has a thriving supernatural black market and the page we seek would be invaluable if sold to the right person. But likelihood is that my pa… the likelihood is that the king and queen will know of its whereabouts if it has been found. Regardless of if they have a hold of it or not,” Selina admitted, the thought of stating ‘parents’ seeming to be inappropriate since they had never really been in Selina’s life.

“Do you reject them or did they reject you?” Thomas asked after several minutes of watching Selina and trying to decipher the pain that spread across her features while the ship’s crew began to scurry more, readying for when they entered the port.

“By logical thought, one would believe that they rejected me with the way that I was raised and by the lack of time that they spent in my life leading up to today, however, when you meet them, you will realise that it was neither. They are just too distant from everyone but each other that they had no room to commit, care or nurture their own offspring,” Selina explained coldly, an unattached tone masking the abandoned feeling that filled her.

“Why would I be meeting them?” Thomas asked, his eyes catching on the people walking around on the docks in Cyprus as the ship slowed to a stop.

“You are a new vampire. You are arriving at their doorstep with their only child who turned you. If you didn’t meet them, you’d be essentially telling them that you reject them as your king and queen and thus giving them a reason to kill you,” Selina admitted somewhat unwillingly but she had lied to him yesterday and refused to do so again.

“So basically everyone does or they get killed,” Thomas mused sourly as he followed Selina off the boat and onto the mouldy docks of Cyprus.

“Pretty much,” Selina admitted as several vampires bowed to her before looking at Thomas quizzically. The newer vampire confusing most of the men in the port but some baring their teeth at him.

“Word to the wise, if you see any of the men bare their teeth at you, ignore them. It’s common practice for vampires to bare their teeth when they feel threatened or jealous,” Selina murmured loud enough so that Thomas could hear her, but quiet enough that the strong wind wouldn’t take her words to the ears of prying creatures. As the two reached the end of the port, a horse drawn carriage made from dark oak and pulled by two abnormally large, black horses stopped in front of them.

“Lady Selina,” a man greeted as he got off the carriage and bowed to the aforementioned vampire, faltering when he saw Thomas behind her. “The king and queen have requested that you attend to their court immediately to explain some intricacies,”

“Be blunt with me, Gregorio or do not speak at all,” Selina snapped, Thomas shivered involuntarily as the coldness in Selina’s words chilled even the cold, damp air that surrounded them, the unemotional tone causing adrenalin to flood the brain and instil a fight or flight response from the man Gregorio and from Thomas himself.

“Of course, my lady. My apologies,” the man apologised as he bowed in respect to the vampire heiress. The man quickly opened the door to the carriage and offered his hand to Selina who accepted it graciously and climbed into the carriage, followed by Thomas soon after.

“I assume he meant me when he said ‘intracicies’,” Thomas stated more than asked as he looked out the window once the carriage was moving, Selina’s presence somewhat calming as Thomas’s mind began to kick into overdrive with ways that everything could go badly.

“Yes. You’re a new vampire and the king and queen will want to know why I’ve turned someone now after 658 years of refusing to do so,” Thomas turned to look at Selina, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“658 years?” Thomas asked, not quite sure whether he was surprised by Selina’s age or her will power.

“Yeah, I’m old. I know,” she admitted as she looked at Thomas, both sharing a quick glance before falling into a fit of laughter, neither knowing why they were laughing but happy that they were.


	14. Chapter 14

“When we get inside the castle, I need you to promise me that you won’t speak unless spoken to. No one speaks out against the royal family and unfortunately speaking out of turn is included as speaking out against the king and queen,” Selina’s words were rushed and quiet, her tone panicked as she spoke to Thomas.

“I’ll do my best but why? Why are they so easy to offend?” Thomas asked, as a large wall suddenly appeared out the window, followed by a large castle that hadn’t been there just a minute ago.

“They are the oldest vampires known to any species. They have been around since before the pyramids were built in Ancient Egypt. They still have tendencies to think their gods like the pharaoh was believed to be a god,” Selina explained, the carriage coming to a stop as her words reached Thomas’s ears. The two vampires exited the carriage in front of a large castle made of some kind of dark coloured rock but certainly not stone since the material seemed to shine in the sunlight.

“What is the castle made out of?” Thomas asked as they walked through the large wooden doors.

“It’s made with polished gabbro. There’s a large underground volcano that leads into a cave system beneath the ocean just off the north coast of the country. My parents made their thralls mine all the gabbro they could find and bring it here,” Selina answered leading Thomas further into the castle, the former clearly knowing the castle off the top of her head. As they neared a closed set of mahogany doors, the man standing outside bowed in respect before opening the doors, announcing their arrival.

“Heiress to the Vampiric Throne and only child to King Aeneas and Queen Charis, Princess Selina!” Selina’s walk changed from relaxed and calm right in front of Thomas. Her walk now seeming almost dark and instantly drew your attention to her form as she walked through the lavish grand hall in the hidden castle. At the other end of the room a crowd of people had gathered to see it the rumour was true. That the heiress had actually turned a human into a vampire.

“You didn’t tell me you were a princess,” Thomas whispered, the whispering at the other end overpowering his voice, thankfully.

“I thought it was pretty obvious since my parents are the king and queen,” Selina whispered back, her voice strained.

“Then why do you go by Lady?” Thomas asked before kneeling before the king and queen as Selina did.

“Because it’s what I prefer,” she whispered quickly. Thomas not daring to question it further since the room had gone dead silent.

“Child. You haven’t been home in so long. We were beginning to think you had been killed,” the king’s voice was thick with a Grecian accent. The queen rested her hand on the shoulder of her husband as they both rose to their feet, looking down on their daughter and the stranger that she had very clearly turned.

“Indeed. You know your father and I worry about you,” the queen’s tone was void of any emotion and Thomas was immediately reminded of his lack of a childhood. The fact that he at least had his sister seemed like a comfort when he thought about what Selina must have gone through.

“Exploration is best left alone, child. Now, who is this?” the king stated before motioning to Thomas. Thomas wanted to stand up and answer the question for himself, but the tone of voice used and the warning that Selina had given him, told him that this question was not for him.

“This is Sir Thomas Sharpe. He died a decade ago but,” Selina stopped momentarily barely long enough for anyone to notice that she had but since everyone in the room other than Thomas was centuries old, Selina knew that everyone had, in fact, noticed her hesitation. “I turned him into a vampire just days ago,”

“So, the rumour is true. You have turned someone for the first time, child,” Thomas wondered why the king and queen refused to use their daughters name. Was it ignorance? Forgetfulness? Did they just not care for their only child?

“ _Sir_ Sharpe. What is his claim to you child?” the king asked, still speaking with Selina.

“No claim has been made. And no claim will be made,” Selina stated, standing from her spot on the floor.

“ _LIES_ ,” Thomas swallowed hard, fighting his body’s instinct to run away from the angered vampire king. “If there is no claim and no claim to be made you wouldn’t be here,”

“I’m trying to find some missing pages to the tome jinlar jasadlari,” Selina reaffirmed, ignoring the anger radiating off of the king as he sat in his throne, the queen following suit as they glared at Selina and Thomas.

“Why? Why would you dare use that book?” the queen asked, her voice broke as she spoke and Thomas recognised her tone. She was scared.

“I didn’t but someone else did and I need those missing pages to undo what has been done. Sir Sharpe is accompanying me so he can try to save his sister who was taken by a monster that was summoned from the book,” Selina explianed, the courtiers all beginning to whisper amongst themselves at what they were being privilaged to witness.

“5 pages from the tome were found in India. One was completely blank and was destroyed, the other 4 were being transported here by sea but they never made it. The ship sank into the ocean mid-journey,” the king explained firmly and Thomas felt Selina mentally snap at the king’s words. Selina had spent long enough in this hell hole to know how her parents worked.

“I respect you both but I know you’re lying. You’d never send it by ocean until it was in Greece so that it would come via the only people you trust. Where are the pages?” Selina asked, her voice steady. Much more steady than her confidence.

“YOU DARE TO DEFY US?!” The king bellowed as he rose from his throne. The courtiers all cowered down to the floor as the king’s voice filled the room, echoing off of the marble walls.

“This one time, father, I do defy you. Where. Are. The. Pages?” Selina asked, her voice quiet as a whisper as her father’s words continued to bounce around the room.

“Leave us,” the king ordered and the courtiers left the hall, leaving only the king and queen with Selina and Thomas. The king sighed and sat back in his seat, head in hands. “Selina. Two of the pages were destroyed in a storm on their way here. The two that made it back are illegiable. Whatever spell was used, you’ll need to find a way to undo it without the spells on the missing pages,”

“I hoenstly thought you had forgotten my name,” Selina admitted sadly, her face showing her shock and surprise at hearing her father say her name.

“We may have been distant from you, but you are still our daughter, Selina,” the queen’s tone was soft and nurturnig like one would normally expect of a mother speaking with her child.

“You,” Thomas stood immedaitely when the king pointed at him, “make a claim on my daughter. I don’t want to die without seeing my daughter have a claimant,” Thomas nodded before he followed Selina out of the hall, not sure what was meant by ‘make a claim’ and ‘claimant’.


	15. Chapter 15

“Selina,” Thomas called as he followed after Selina, her movements erratic and rushed as she turned corners and followed halls faster than Thomas had ever seen her move, excluding when she runs.

“Selina,” “I’m sorry. I just wanted to be out of there. That was probably the only time they have ever used my name and it freaks me out,” Selina explained, cutting off Thomas before he could say anything more now that the two were outside the castle.

“Why?” Thomas asked, the questions he actually wanted to ask on hold temporarily as he tried to work out what was bothering the vampiress in front of him.

“It just does. You get used to being objectified that when you’re no longer being objectified it shocks your brain,” she explained, her hands motioning to the castle and then pulling at parts of her hair before rubbing together and brushing down the front of her dress.

“Okay. May I ask what your dad meant by ‘make a claim’?” Thomas asked, trying to get off the topic of the king and queen using their daughter’s name for the first time.

“It’s a longish story,” Selina stated, trying to get Thomas to drop that question since she didn’t want to have to explain it to him. She just wanted to focus on something, anything, that could help to defeat the shadows. A storm on the horizon not a good sign to any vampires that knew the demonic omens of the 9th age.

“Please,” Selina looked away from the bad omen and looked at Thomas again. His eyes were still such a beautiful sky blue but she could see all of the questions swimming in them.

“It’s kind of like proposing, I guess. Vampires make a claim on a vampiress. The stronger the basis of the claim the less room the vampiress has to get out of the claim. If the claim holds, the vampire can leave a claiming mark, kind of like werewolves, and it’s an eternal bond. It can’t be broken after it’s made,” Selina explained before walking away, stopping at a railing that overlooked a steep cliff near the town they had arrived in. A semi-awkward silence filled the open space between the two, neither really knowing what to say to the other.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas looked at Selina, her hair was beginning to fallout of the style she had forced her hair into, the loose curls blowing with the wind that was coming off of the ocean.

“Why?” Thomas asked, his mind catching up with the fact that Selina had apologized to him. He walked up to the older vampire and looked out over the railing at the city they had arrived at. There was smoke billowing up from factories as ships entered and left the port.

“I have no way of saving your sister without those pages. The reason I bought Allerdale Hall was so that I could have some peace from everything supernatural. I was born into this Thomas, I don’t know what it’s like to breath, to have a beating heart. I died before I was born so I never knew what it was like to _live_.” Thomas looked at Selina as tears slowly streaked down her cheeks, her blue eyes surrounded by red as her emotions actively filled her features.

“I wanted that peace so that I could study the books that my parents made me protect. The tome Corpses of Demons is one of those books, in particular the one your sister used. It contains most magic spells that vampires can use and be affected by. Including all the things that go bump in the night that even we’re scared of. ‘The Shadows’ as I’ve kept calling them are the remains of the dead. The destroyed and twisted souls of all supernatural creatures that were desecrated after their death. They scare every living and unliving creature because once they find their prey and kill them, they target anything and everything. Nothing will survive.” Thomas didn’t know what to say to Selina’s admission. Her fear, explained. Her concerns, available. Her secrets, known.

Thomas watched her as she bit her bottom lip to quell the sobbing that was being silenced in her throat. He lay a hand carefully on the small of her back as he took a step closer to her, if they had both been alive, he would have felt heat radiating from her body.

“Selina, there will be a way to stop them. I may not get my sister back but at least we could save people’s lives,” Thomas’s words were whisper quiet as he spoke, he wanted to see his sister again but life, or in this case death, doesn’t always play fair. The silence between them was less awkward now and Thomas refused to look away from the woman next to him. He eyes were moving rapidly as if she were watching horses race past her before an idea clearly came to mind.

Selina realized that while they may be dead, the desecration of a corpse has an opposite. The consecration of a living being. The biggest issue was that the living had to be powerful enough or there needed to be many living beings combined to overpower the dead that were coming for them but if they could. If they could consecrate enough life it would be enough for Selina to get the tome back from the basement of Allerdale Hall. There was a single spell in that tome that may work if the remains of the dead are weak enough.

“What are you thinking?” Thomas’s question pulled Selina out of her thoughts; her cheeks were still tear stained but the look of hope in her eyes gave Thomas hope that she may have found a way to undo what his sister had done.

“I’m thinking that you wanted to kill someone out of jealousy before we left England. Do you still want the chance?” Selina asked causing Thomas to raise an eyebrow in question, but he agreed nevertheless, after all, the truce between Alan and Thomas was only temporary and while the latter was still alive.


	16. Chapter 16

“So we’re going back to England to get the tome?” Thomas questioned, trying to get his brain around the very straight forward plan but the problem was the logic Selina was using. That’s what was confusing him and even as England came into view out in the distance, the early morning sun a blessing, Thomas still couldn’t work out the details of Selina’s plan.

“Yes. And we need to sanctify a living person to essentially make them sacred, the stronger the morals the better because the more powerful the person’s morals are, the weaker the shadows will become. That’s where the issue lies though. If the person isn’t moral strong enough, then the shadows won’t be weak enough for the spell I’m thinking of to work. If the spell doesn’t work, it’ll just make them angrier and no matter what, no one will live,” the theory was seamless. Though, to actually use the plan and correctly was something that both Selina and Thomas were unsure of.

The captain from the ship they had come to Cyprus on had been willing to take Selina and Thomas back across the way, their cargo having sold for a ‘decent sum’ which in the captain’s eyes meant that he could splurge a little. The ship had been given a thorough cleaning and paint job. The perks of being part of a society that is completely made of creatures that _don’t_ exist is that everything happens in the blink of an eye. The ship was visually cleaner but the smell had only gotten worse.

“You remember how to get to Allerdale Hall, don’t you?” Selina’s question was unexpected and Thomas didn’t know if he wanted to feel offended, confused or both.

“Yes,” Selina’s face lit up with Thomas’s words.

“Good. You find Alan and meet me at the cottage _before_ sunset,” Selina stated before running off for something unknown to Thomas. Thomas began his search by asking some of the local men if they had seen Edith since Thomas felt that she wouldn’t stray far from Alan while they were both here, especially with the two having had children together. Some part of Thomas ached at that fact; Edith had 2 children with Alan but Thomas’s own son had died but that was an unfortunately common side effect of loving one’s sister.

By the time that Thomas had asked around the docks, he hadn’t had any leads and midday had well and truly passed. What if he couldn’t find Alan? What if he found Edith but not Alan? What was he supposed to do? As if on cue, Thomas walked around a corner and walked straight into someone.

Edith.

She had been consumed in a book when she had rounded the corner but her book now lay forgotten on the ground as he eyes all but drunk in what she was seeing. Thomas was panicking internally. What was he supposed to do? How was he meant to get out of this?

“Thomas?” Edith’s voice was shaking as she spoke and he couldn’t blame her for that, but even with a shaky voice, she still sounded like she was both joyful and scared to see him. He couldn’t blame her for that either.

“Hello Edith,” his words seemed foreign to him but he tried to push those thoughts down as an idea came to mind. “It seems a bit strange that you’d be walking around with your head in a book but not have Alan around to guide you,”

“He’s busy in the hospital. He is doing a temporary work placement here,” Edith pointed at one of the hospitals in the area before falling to the ground unconscious. He had two choices, take the unconscious Edith and hope that she would be able to fit the need that Alan was supposed to **_or_** he leaves her seated against the wall, breaks into the hospital and takes Alan. Thomas sighed as he realized that the choice was more or less made for him when he saw what the time was, Big Ben filling the air with unique tones, 1 pm. Thomas still had to get out to Allerdale Hall with the person that he chooses to take with him for the spell. He sighed as he lifted Edith into his arms before running for his childhood home. When he finally reached the gate entrance to the mansion with Edith in his arms, Selina appeared with a bag full of ‘bits of this and that’ but her eyes were glued to the blonde in Thomas’s arms.

“Why have you got her? I thought you were going to get Alan,” Selina inquired, concern in her tone and covering her features. Thomas placed Edith’s still unconscious form on the ground next to the gate but hesitated with what to do next or what to say to Selina. The two stood awkwardly side by side as the sun began to set in the distance with the red clay glowing in the bright sunlight.

“You realise this will kill her,” Selina muttered quietly when the two still remained in silence with one another. The gravity of the words sunk into Thomas’s mind, the realisation that he had died trying to help her, the woman he had once loved but now he was going to get her killed. Did that mean he had failed and that his sister had succeeded or was this always inevitable? That everyone who stands on this ground must either be dead or will die.

“So what are we going to do now?” Thomas asked, trying to avoid answering the question in fear of what else could be admitted right now.

“Well, you two need to explain your plan to me and you still need to make a claim,” both Selina and Thomas turned to the voice, the remnants of colour in their faces dropping at the sight of the king standing in front of them.

“Why…” “One of the guards told me what had happened outside the castle between the two of you. I knew what had crossed your mind to cause you both to run down to the port and return here,” the king answered, cutting off Selina before she could finish her question, the words having caught on her tongue.

“We need to get the tome first, it’s in the basement of the mansion,” Selina explained distortedly, her thoughts clearly not keeping up with her words. Her mind unsure of how to react to her father having come from Cyprus.

“So let’s get going then,”


	17. Chapter 17

The three stood near the entrance to the basement, looking through the pieces of Thomas’s machine to see the tome still sitting in the same spot on the red stained, broken tiles with the pages used to turn Thomas from a ghost to a vampire was still visible.

“You never told me he was a ghost,” Selina and Thomas turned to look at the king as he looked at the tome below. He turned his head and looked at the two vampires next to him, confusion on their faces.

“What?” the king asked as he grabbed some of the machine and began moving it, Selina following suit as they tried to get inside before the shadows began to return to the house, Selina had found that the shadows had gotten caught by the sunrise and were not in the mansion for now.

“Why did you need to bring that up?” Selina asked, Thomas joining the attempt to move all of the machine pieces that Selina had placed to save Thomas and Lucille when they were both ghosts.

“You know there is still the potential that he could still go insane,” the king mentioned, ripping the last part of the machine away from the entrance. Thomas looked at the king, remembering that Selina had mentioned something like this before she turned him into a vampire.

“Not if you do the ritual correctly, father,” Selina snapped turning away from the entrance to go and get Edith only to see her running away from it and out into the forest.

“I blame you,” Selina noted, pointing to her father before she and Thomas ran after Edith. If they didn’t get her quickly, the shadows would return and they would all die. The forest was sparse trees and small shrubs which made it easy for the two vampires to see Edith as she ran but she was close to where the dense forest began; a mass of moving shadows within an unwelcomed sight.

Selina managed to grab Edith’s arm and pull her away from the shadows as they lurched forward to try and grab for the living human but the final rays of sun burnt them back into hiding. The shock on Edith’s face as she stared at the darkness seemed to outweigh her fear of the two vampires that were now tugging her behind them towards the mansion she had managed to escape successfully.

“Where did he go?” Selina whispered as they reached the entrance to the basement, the book no longer in its place on the floor and the king having vanished. The two took Edith inside through the main door, Thomas hypnotizing her into a deep sleep once more before the two searched the house, finding the king, thankfully, in the attic above the house with the book opened and the ritual prepared. Selina turned back around and walked down the stairs once more to go and get Edith, the final part of the first ritual that needed to be completed.

“I’d be grateful if you would hurry up and make a claim on her,” the king murmured before looking at Thomas.

“I don’t understand why, sir,” the king looked Thomas over and sighed, leaving his space at the bench in front of a cauldron.

“There is a ritual that I’m about to complete which will boost the chances of Selina’s two rituals working successfully and as I told you in Cyprus. I don’t want to die without seeing my daughter having a claimant,” as the king finished explaining he went back to the bench and began a seemingly small spell in time for Selina to reenter the attic workshop with Edith. Thomas walked over to Selina his mind pondering what the king had said.

“How does one make a claim?” Selina’s face contorted with confusion at Thomas’s question but she brushed it off.

“You just need to say that you claim the person using their name and it has to be done in front of the king or queen, why?” Selina watched Thomas’s reaction before realizing she could hear her father muttering under his breath.

“That’s it?” Thomas inquired earning a small nod of the head from Selina in reply. He took a deep breath and spoke again. “I claim you, Selina,”

“Sorry, what?” “I approve the union,” Selina’s question was muffled by the sound of her father approving the claim before she could even fight it, the claim solidified and would be made unbreakable once Thomas left his mark.

“What?” As Selina finished her question a light filled the small room in a blinding flash, the king vanishing with the light. It took less than a minute for Selina to realise what he had done.

Selina began preparing a flask of ingredients filled with water and Thomas couldn’t keep up with what she was putting in but what he did pay attention to was when she began pouring it into Edith’s mouth, the latter still out cold. There was an odd warmth coming from Edith as Selina walked away. The remaining contents of the flask were poured into the cauldron with a bucket of water, the contents being left to come to a boil.

Once the water was boiling, Selina began adding each ingredient creating a hiss sound before the water changed colour and viscosity until it was bubbling a burnt orange colour. Thomas heard a deep growl behind him and turned to see the large shadowy creature from days ago, the one that had bitten Selina when she was unconscious several days ago. Thomas tried to stand in its way as it headed straight for Selina who was grabbing the final ingredient.

The large shadow knocked Thomas out of the way easily, trying to lunge for Selina as it realised what she was doing but she managed to get the mistletoe into the bubbling orange fluid before it reached her; the creature turning to run away. The orange liquid turned into a deep purple colour before it formed a whirlpool within itself, sucking in the air around it and creating a strong wind. The shadowy creature dug its claws into the floor but the wind was strong enough to pull it back towards the cauldron, screams filling the air around them as more shadows were sucked into the room, hitting Selina and Thomas as they flew through the air.

As the screaming finally ceased and the wind died down, Thomas and Selina looked around the empty room, no dark shadows lingering for a feast, Edith had disappeared and the room was no longer lit by the sun as it finished setting below the horizon.

“So what now?”

“I have no idea to be honest,” The two lingered in a heavy silence before Thomas chuckled slightly and looked to Selina.

“Just think, we have eternity together,” Thomas exclaimed, trying to lighten the mood and succeeding when Selina laughed.

“All I can think about is all the mischief we’re going to get up to,” Selina’s words were the last thing the two said for the rest of the day but they didn’t need to speak to each other to know that if they needed something, the other would be there for them.


	18. Chapter 18

“What are you smiling about?” Selina asked as she looked at Thomas. His hair was brushed neatly to the side as he fixed his bowtie.

“How many times do you think I can do this before someone starts questioning it?” he questioned before dusting off some imaginary dust from his blazer, looking over to his wife with a wicked grin.

“I’m assuming that you mean being in the spotlight which would then be followed by me telling you that as long as you waited at least a century between outings in the spotlight, you could probably be famous for the rest of time,” Selina admitted, as the car pulled to a stop. Thomas climbed out of the car before offering Selina his arm and walking up the red carpet as photographers took photos of the two vampires, their secret thankfully still hidden.

“I was wondering when you would turn up, mate. Come on, let’s get some photo’s together,” Selina smirked inwardly at the Australian actor and shook her head slightly as Thomas was removed from his place near Selina and taken up to a backdrop for some photos.

“Where are you from?” Selina asked the blonde who had been ‘abandoned’ by her husband.

“Spain, and you?” the woman asked, clearly having not expected conversation with Selina but the woman’s smile widened with Selina’s instigation into talking.

“Born in England but I’ve lived all over the world,” Selina admitted. The conversation lulled awkwardly before the woman turned and looked at Selina with a smile.

“So how old are you?” Selina smiled at Chris Hemsworth’s wife, her smile turning wicked like Thomas’s had done in the car.

“Age is but a number once you’re old enough,” Selina mused as Thomas and Chris returned to their wives.

“Don’t let the secret slip,” Thomas muttered against Selina’s temple before kissing his wife as he wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Thomas, I’m older than you are. And I’ve kept the secret longer than you. I’m not going to slip up now,” Selina stated through small laughs as they entered the building, their smiles faltering at the sight of vampire hunters waiting inside, checking everyone that entered.

“Then again…” Selina muttered somewhat annoyed by the display of force.

“Would it really be that bad if the world found out?” Thomas asked as two guards asked Thomas and Selina to separate so a ‘safety check’ could be carried out.

“Honestly? With the way that human’s glorify vampires now, you would be worshiped as a god more than you already are,” Selina mused, smiling wildly as Thomas hypnotized one of the guards, making him let Thomas through.

“Well, then. No harm, no foul,” Thomas stated joyfully as he turned to talk to one of the hunters that had gotten too close.

“Sir, you need to keep moving,” the guard ordered, a slight waiver in his tone when he spoke.

“I will not be moving on without my wife, thank you. Unless you wish to feel true fear, accept that,” Thomas threatened before turning back to face Selina.

“Sir,” the guard started, Thomas snapped around and bared his fangs at the guard who screamed and ran away, Thomas’s shoulder’s slumping forward slightly in disappointment that he didn’t get to do anything to the guard.

“Am I not a good vampire?” Thomas asked as all the hunter’s disappeared quickly, realizing what Thomas had done to the other guard.

“Don’t doubt yourself. Now let’s go watch this movie,” Selina stated while laughing as she grabbed one of Thomas’s arms and pulled him along to the premier for the first Thor movie.


End file.
